


Forget Me Not

by kya0810



Category: SixTONES (Band)
Genre: Alzheimer's Disease, Domestic Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28379925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kya0810/pseuds/kya0810
Summary: Taiga has Alzheimer's. Summers after summers, and falls after falls. Winter finally comes.
Relationships: Kyomoto Taiga/Matsumura Hokuto
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Forget Me Not

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a story to read when you're on your couch or on your bed, and outside is the freezing winter with snowflakes landing on the window. Prepare yourself a cup of hot choco with marshmallow, and an open heart to welcome both pain and happiness.

“In what year did SixTONES debut?”

“This I know, 2020, _god_ who could ever forget that year?”

Taiga leans his blond silky hair peacefully on Hokuto’s chest, feeling the autumn breeze caressing his face. The couple is lying against a large couch set up on the balcony, where below is the glamorous city of Tokyo, and above is the mystic full moon with dim stars.

Hokuto chuckles at Taiga’s answer. 2020 was a rough year. There were global diseases, natural disasters occurring in almost all nations, architectural constructions being torn down to pieces, and many, many more. All those years have passed, and they’re still with each other, in the flood of cherishes of everyone around them.

They thought things were too good to be true, that all of the happiness then felt like a fever dream.

Happiness is the way Hokuto wakes him up with peck kisses, the two toothbrushes leaning against each other, the smell of food lingering even late at night, the hugs and pats when there was a thunderstorm, and the longing, desiring, loving, healing kisses on Christmas’ Eve.

Happiness is not when Taiga was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Happiness is not when Taiga couldn’t remember what day it was.

Happiness is not when Taiga got lost on his way home that winter, and Hokuto found him sitting beside the streetlight, crying under a layer of snow.

Years have passed, and Taiga’s memory storage is getting narrower, mistier like everything is sleeping soundly under that winter snow. The snow piles up too thick that how much Taiga tries to dig deeper, harder, nothing ever returns to him.

Last year, Taiga made his mother cry when he couldn’t remember her maiden name. This spring, Juri took him out for a picnic under the sakura blossoms, he realized he forgot Shintaro’s birth year.

A month ago, he secretly went to a tattoo shop and asked them to print Hokuto’s kanji name on his left wrist, where there are veins that directly lead to the heart. Taiga watched them pressuring that cold needle deep into the skin with light in his eyes, seeing the four beautiful characters, the name of the boy he swore he would never forget, the love he once lost but now is found, sewed into his pale canvas, carved onto his beating, lively heart.

Hokuto saw the tattoo, and his eyes dwelled up with sparkling tears. He kissed Taiga’s wrist and pulled the blond into his tight embrace, lukewarm tears running down the fluffy cheeks and landing onto Taiga’s shivering shoulder. Their hearts spared no distance, although fate did its best to rip them apart.

So Hokuto did everything he could. He made memory games out of cardboard, decorated their walls with sticky notes, talked more than usual, gave Taiga kanji quizzes every night before bed, though the blond obviously has had enough of that.

Hokuto learned to shut up when they started to argue, when Taiga was so frustrated that he began crying and throwing things around if he forgot a musical line he wrote. Hokuto would just calmly made Taiga a hot chocolate with marshmallows, took him to bed, then cleaned up the mess that happened more frequently, without a single sigh.

.

Summers after summers, and falls after falls. Time is racing and so is Hokuto. He’s racing with time itself. Not one day that he can sleep before tracking down the Alzheimer’s development process, note down every smallest detail of Taiga’s misfunction and report to the doctors.

It’s no use doing so, but he always does anyway. He must keep himself busy. Hokuto must keep his logic up and running, he needs to think, to analyze, to calculate, or else he would collapse anytime he’s not talking to Taiga. Hokuto sleeps the least he can manage, so that he won’t dream and nothing would hurt, cuts his hair every week, wears the exact same clothes in the wardrobe, never lets his nails get too long to be noticeable.

Hokuto will be like this ‘til the end of Taiga’s time. He will look the same, speak the same, act the same, love the same. He wants Taiga to never forget who Matsumura Hokuto is.

Just one thing, Hokuto prays. If only he could trade his life for that one desperate wish.

.

And there it comes.

The winter of years away from now, my reader.

Taiga wakes up early in the morning. He leans his head on the freezy window, staring lovingly at the snowflakes landing peacefully on the wooden edges. He reaches out his pale shaky hand, drawing a snowflake onto the steam on the window glass. One after one. Taiga weakly smiles, he breathes out a foggy breathe.

Someone covers Taiga’s shoulder with a blanket. The older stutters, he turns around with wide-open eyes, but calms down right away.

“Morning. What you want for breakfast?”

“C-can I have tomato and scrambled egg…?”

The taller pats Taiga’s head, and quickly goes for breakfast. Taiga stares at the man. So familiar, so loving, yet so illusional.

Who is this young man to him?

Why does the man make him breakfast, lunch, dinner, and chocolate marshmallows? Why does he stick kanjis on his bed? Why is he crying nights after nights?

He looks like someone in Taiga’s dream. Fluffy black hair and gorgeous smile. Chiseled arms and warm hugs. There are lights flashing from behind the boy in this dream, and he never sees his face.

Scattered memories immediately vanished from Taiga’s mind.

Taiga walks out of the bedroom, following the tongue-gasmic scent of fresh tomato and creamy scrambled eggs. The fine man is already at the dining table with a beautiful grin, signals Taiga to come sit.

The food smells so good Taiga can’t help but to even lick the dish after finishing it in less than five minutes. The man has his eyes on Taiga the whole time and bursts out an endearing laughter. A laugh that sounds like a lost lullaby.

And with long firm fingers, he reaches out to Taiga’s mouth and carefully wipes away all the remaining food while Taiga is still puzzling about who, and where, and what, and why. He wants to question but he cannot. He wants to ask what day it is, why yesterday it’s still summer but today it snows, why his hair turns black overnight ‘cause he thought he always dyes it blond.

“Who are you?”

The words slip out from Taiga’s mouth, so naturally that he can detect pain creeping up the other’s face, how the black-haired’s eyebrows shove closer together and force the tears to flow.

The taller man suddenly approaches Taiga, he kneels down with ocean eyes. Then Taiga’s left wrist is longingly and gently grabbed, fingers playing with the tattoo. The four-charactered tattoo that has been there since when he never knows, but it gives him a wicked clench in the heart. Taiga can feel neurons frantically flood out chemical signals in his brain, but all are useless.

“Would you read the kanjis for me?”

“I don’t know if I can. I mean…is it…uhm…”

Taiga cannot form words. He cannot remember how to read a four-letter word in Japanese anymore.

“It’s okay, calm down. It’s a name, Taiga. The first two are the last name, and the other two are the first name. Wanna try?”

Being stared at with expecting eyes somewhat pressure him, but more than that, he feels drowned with those warm fuzzy feelings of protection, caring, and love, a love so strong that it mends his broken memories part altogether, only to pronounce a name.

“Then…the pine forest by a village…Ma-tsu-mu-ra…”

Taiga catches a glimpse of something sparkling behind those shuffled bangs.

“…and…the north…The Northern Star! Ho-ku-to! Am I right?”

Hokuto collapses on Taiga’s laps. It’s too much. The way his love say his name after months and months of forgetting how to say it, it’s all worth his patience, it’s all worth it.

Hokuto cries hard, and he sobs out all the torture. Hokuto aches, in such suffering that no one should deserve to bear. But listening to Taiga’s saying his name rekindle all the comfort they used to have, and he can finally, utterly, feel alive, like a true human being, after being so lonely in the soul this whole time.

There is no magic. There is only wounds that now starts to heal.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for going with me through this.
> 
> Some explanation: 
> 
> "He wants to ask what day it is, why yesterday it’s still summer but today it snows, why his hair turns black overnight ‘cause he thought he always dyes it blond."  
> => The meaning of this sentence is that the last broken memories of Taiga was of some far-away summer before when he was still having blond hair. Later on, he became too weak to dye his hair, and the pigments might do harm to his body. The time has gone so long that his hair turns black for a while now, only Taiga that doesn't recognize it.
> 
> I've been doing some research on Alzheimer's cases online, but if I made any mistake in describing the symptoms, please let me know after you read my work :>  
> I also want to show my appreciation for families and friends of Alzheimer's patients and themselves too, for fighting with all the strength, to remember the loved ones and the precious memories of one's life. Through Hokuto and Taiga, hope everyone to never give up in hard times, and to believe in the continuous effort to move on and live the best we can. 
> 
> 2021 here we go yayyyyyyyyyyyy


End file.
